Friday, December 21, 2012

The Trucker
Charity Christmas Group met via conference
call Thursday night, after weeks of working out the details of the 2012
fundraising. More than $9,500 was distributed to 19 selected families just in
time for Christmas.

The families were chosen from 36
applications for help. Each application was carefully vetted, whittling down
the number to 19 families. Most of the families were phoned last night in a
group call “from the North Pole.”

Each family was informed they had
been given $500 in the way of a Comcheck.

One wife was standing in the middle of a gas station when
the call came from the trucker group. Three inches of snow was on the way, and
she ran out for a gallon of milk. Her trucker husband was off the road after
surgery and now had failed his vision test. Christmas was looking bleak.

Another driver had been hurt unloading a truck, and his wife
was diagnosed with throat cancer. One was going through divorce, looking for
work, trying to scrape up enough money for presents for his sons.

Family after grateful family shared their dilemmas.

“Oh my God, you guys are so wonderful. … There was NOT going
to be a Christmas until now.”

“I never had anyone give me anything. … I don’t know what to
say …”

“I’m gonna buy my kids some new clothes.”

“Now we can keep the electricity on!”

One woman said her young son had been looking forward to
Christmas so much, then overheard her and her trucker husband talking about the
money situation. “The look on my son’s face just killed me,” she said. “Now I
can buy presents. I don’t know what to say. God bless you!”

As the Christmas Group worked its way down the list of calls
to make, not only were some of the beneficiaries on the road, several group
members were truckin’ as well. So in between the joyful reactions of the
families contacted, mutterings from drivers could be heard.

“I just hit 32 degrees in the pouring rain, wish me luck.”

And “wow, this is some killer wind!”

A driver in North Carolina said, “Not too bad here, guys.”

Another reported, “I am sitting still and the wind is
rockin’ the truck pretty bad.”

And then of course, “OK guys, who is next? Who’s playing
Santa on the next one?”

The group has been raising funds and “playing Santa” since
2008. Since the project began five years ago, the Christmas
Group has raised $46,500 and helped 78 needy trucking families.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

America’s trucking professionals do their share of good deeds, and many of those deeds involve causes greater than themselves. We can’t thank truckers enough for their big hearts and for standing up for what’s right.

Truckers scored two victories in the past week, and deserve credit for the role they played in making those victories happen.

In this case, we’re talking about infrastructure – the nation’s roadways, the lifeblood of the economy – specifically the Ohio Turnpike and New York State Thruway.

Proposals in both states had the potential to rock transportation as we know it, and not in a good way: Ohio with its possible lease of the turnpike to private investors and New York with its proposed 45 percent toll increase on trucks. To say both plans would have had negative consequences for trucking and the economy is an understatement.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and both proposals were scrapped in favor of alternatives involving bonds.

While the officials can take their share of credit for backing off and coming up with alternatives, it was the groundswell at the grassroots level that made the difference.

Truckers were on the front lines throughout, responding to calls to action, contacting their lawmakers and governors’ offices, attending meetings and filing comments. Truckers were not intimidated by the rhetoric or editorials that supported the proposals. In fact, those tend to make them work harder.

If you are among those who picked up a phone in the past few months in these two states, and you’ve spoken your mind about the value of infrastructure to the economy, and how toll hikes and oppressive proposals affect you and your ability to do business, you’re on our list of people to thank. You made the difference.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I got to
the junction of Missouri State Highway 13 and I-70 early on Saturday. I spotted
a few bikers right off, standing by their polished motorcycles in the Pilot
parking lot. They were there to escort the wreaths. The group soon swelled to
maybe 50 bikes from area motorcycle clubs. When they rolled off on to Highway
13 and headed north to the veterans cemetery, I was right behind.

Too bad
I couldn’t shoot photos and drive at the same time because the day started off
with a cold slate sky that made a somber setting for the double column of bikes
ahead of me. As the riders went single file and swung into the big entrance of
the veterans cemetery, acres of perfectly aligned headstones in the background,
it was a freeze-frame moment.

We were
there to lay Christmas wreaths. At exactly the same time – noon, Saturday, Dec.
15 – about 450,000 balsam wreaths were being dedicated in hundreds of locations
across the nation, and more overseas. The wreaths honor U.S. military personnel
who lost their lives in the service of our armed forces. Maybe they died a long
time ago in Europe or Asia. Maybe last month in Afghanistan.

In the
21 years the Wreaths Across America program has been in existence, volunteers
have placed more than a million live wreaths on the final resting places of
U.S. troops. This year, more than 110,000 wreaths alone were laid on graves in Arlington
National Cemetery near DC.

The WAA story is one we’ve covered for
several years. We have a number of OOIDA members who drive the trucks that move
all those wreaths and some who are members of the Patriot Guard Riders who
escort the trucks. For them, like me, it was a poignant experience.

Each
Christmas, OOIDA sponsors 10 wreaths. Last year, our Land Line Copy Editor Elizabeth Andersen went to Fort Leavenworth
to be a part of the WAA program. This year, I participated by attending the
ceremony planned for the Missouri State Veterans Cemetery, 55 acres located
north of Higginsville, MO.

Photo by Sandi Soendker

The purpose of the ceremony in Higginsville was not to place
wreaths on every one of those headstones, but to present wreaths to all as a
symbol of the nation’s respect for those who sacrificed their lives to protect
our freedom.

As this small ceremony was unfolding in Missouri,
I was reminded that at the same time, others were participating in a wreath
laying at President Kennedy’s grave followed by a ceremony that would take
place at the Tomb of the Unknowns (also known as the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier).

I even thought about Normandy, where the remains
of 9,387 American military heroes lie on 172 acres near Omaha Beach. As we bowed our heads in prayer in Higginsville, some
clued-in Americans in Normandy were doing the same thing. Wreaths Across
America also reaches France and other sacred pieces of foreign soil.

The box of greenery sent to this Higginsville location
contained seven balsam wreaths with red ribbons, made by the Worcester Wreath
Co. in Harrington, ME. The ceremony was smartly conducted by the American Legion,
with assistance of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
The seven wreaths were dedicated to the fallen members of the U.S. Army, U.S.
Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, Marine Corps, Merchant Marines and to the more
than 93,000 MIAs and POWs.

It wasn’t a long ceremony. Soon after, the bikers roared out,
the crowd dispersed, the American Legion rolled up their flags, and the Gold
Star families left.

The overwhelming stillness was much like I thought it would
be in Arlington and more than 700 locations across the nation. Quiet and
remarkably graceful, the way it might be in Normandy and Luxembourg and 22
other places around the world that participate in the wreath-laying.

The only sound was the Stars and Stripes whipping in the
wind. I stayed for a bit, suspended in the sanctity of the place.

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